A blog is that is all about mathematics and calculators, two of my passions in life.

Saturday, May 23, 2015

Review: TI-84 Plus CE

Review:TI-84 Plus
CE

TI-84 Plus CE

Calculator Information:

Calculator: TI-84
Plus CE

Manufacturer:
Texas Instruments

Twitter: @ticalculators

Price: $119 - $135

Availability:
Currently online through select distributors. I purchased mine from the Bach Company
(website: http://www.bachcompany.com/
). For a complete list of vendors, check
the Texas Instruments calculator website at http://education.ti.com/en/us/purchase/purchase . It should
be available at popular retail stores, in many colors, by the time the next
school year (2015-2016) comes around.

Current OS:
5.0.1.0012.

What’s in the package?

TI-84 Plus CE, standard mini-USB charging cable,
calculator to calculator cable, warranty information, getting standard guide
(fold out card), and a short operation manual (fold out card). The full manual is found online from the TI
Calculator website.

*For those of you
new to the TI-83/84 Plus family, the TI-84 Plus CE is the latest incarnation.Like 2013’s TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition, the
TI-84 Plus CE is a color graphing calculator, that has a rechargeable battery.

* If you know how to operate any of the TI-83 or TI-84
calculators and are considering either an upgrade or adding this calculator to
your collection, you will feel right at home operating the TI-84 Plus CE. In general, you have the same interface and
syntax (for most commands). The best
part is that the TI Basic programs (with few exceptions) can easily be
transferred to the TI-84 Plus CE from older calculators.

Inequalz: Run this
app and you are able to graph inequalities as well as equalities complete with
shading.

SciTools: This
adds constants, conversions, and vector operations. Vector operations are 2D and are drawn. Operations available are addition,
subtraction, dot product, and cross product. Data/Graphs wizard is a statistics
interface.

MathPrint vs. Classic:
You can operate the TI-84 Plus CE in the classic mode, which the way
older TI-83 Plus calculate, or in MathPrint.
In MathPrint, you can express calculations using templates. With the faster processor, I don’t really
think there is any advantage to using Classic mode any more (except for maybe
to get used to syntax required for programming).

TI 84 Plus CE in action

SciTools app in action

What I like the Most:

* I am loving the increased amount of RAM that the TI-84
Plus CE has. It has the most ram of any
incarnation of the TI-83/84 family.
154,000 bytes are now available compared to the small 21,000 bytes that
the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition offered.

* The new software that is associated with the TI-84 Plus
CE is the TI Connect CE. Features
include easily being able to take screen shots, transfer files, and even
editing programs in the Connection software.
TI Connect CE works with the TI-84 Plus family and the TI-83 Plus fr
(France’s edition of the TI-84 Plus), and TI-83 Premium CE (France’s version of
the TI-84 Plus CE).

* The TI-84 Plus CE is at least three times faster than
the predecessor. And this is
welcome. The CE gets a new 48 Mhz ez80 processor.
The internal RAM has doubled from 128 KB (which 21 KB-24 KB was available for
the user) to 256 KB (154 KB available to the user), allowing for faster
calculations.

* It may be settle, but I detect a better key press
response rate.

* Like the previous C Silver Edition, the screen is crisp
and clear. The text is very easy to
read.

* This is the thinnest TI-84 calculator ever. Yet the CE fits comfortably in my hand and
the keyboard is large with easy to read keys.

‘* The
QuickPlot&Fit-EQ feature (present on the previous C Silver Edition as
well). To use it, press the [graph]
key. The press the [stat] key, scroll
up, and select E: QuickPlot&Fit-EQ under the CALC submenu. Drop points using the [enter] key. Once you are done, press [graph] (FITEQ) to
fit the points. Select the appropriate
curve and the curve is plotted. You can see whether the curve plotted works. Results can be stored.

QuckPlot&Fit-EQ in action: I love this feature!

Being Nit Picky?

* The graph screen still has a border from the previous C
Silver Edition. I was hoping the
calculator take advantage of the entire screen that the monochrome 84s did.

If you have been waiting to get a color graphing TI-84,
then the wait has paid off. The TI-84 CE
is a delight to use, and the operation is fast and responsive. I think only the black case TI-84 CEs are available,
if you really want to have the CE in another color (red, dark blue, light blue,
pink, purple, or gray), then it is a wait until Back to School season.

If you do not have a TI-84 and either are interested or
need to get one for school, the CE is the version to consider, because you get
the color, backlit screen, the rechargeable battery, and a large amount of RAM
(user memory).

5 comments:

...but still no native decimal-to-hexadecimal converstion, still not able to switch to hexadecimal mode, etc. Certainly we could accomplish that with an Apps or a custom programmed function but it is too annoying to be use quickly. Too many keystrokes and not as versatile as having the hex mode directly on the calc. :-(

I bought a CE a few weeks ago and I am about ready to throw it into Tampa Bay. Now I carry both the CE and the Silver with me. Why look like a fool when I go into class and tests with 2 calculators? It's because the CE removed the ability to answer questions automatically in fraction format. Here's an example. On the CE type in the fraction 2/3. It will convert to the decimal .6666666667. Awesome. Now - try to convert that back into a fraction. You can't. You can't until the end of time. So, tell me, how awesome is that? To have all of your answers in decimal format where you might or most likely will not be able to convert back into a logical and recognizable value? Calculating function graph intercepts and values in Calculus are also real fun when 2 decimal points are dropped from the x values displayed as decimals that I will never be able to convert into a fraction on this device. This calculator should come with a crystal ball to help me guess. What makes it a real party favor is the fact that Pearson Edu Math applications require all the answers on homework, quizzes, tests, midterms and finals to be entered as fractions! This thing is an overpriced piece of useless junk. Sure it has pretty color and a lot of features - but the basics, the basic taken for granted things you depend on to work are not there. That makes the CE undependable. I chalk it up to lazy programming which was most likely outsourced to save a few bucks.

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Went to Cal Poly Pomona. Degrees: Accounting (Bachelor of Science), Mathematics (Masters of Science). My email is ews31415@gmail.com. I am also on Twitter: @edward_shore. I can also be found on Google+ under Edward Shore.